SOURCE: O'Leary, Peter. “Deep Trouble/Deep Treble: Nathaniel Mackey's Gnostic Rasp.” In Gnostic Contagion: Robert Duncan and the Poetry of Illness, pp. 171-216. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2002.

In the following essay, O'Leary offers a critical analysis of the influence of American poet Robert Duncan on the works of Nathaniel Mackey.

Were all in harmony to our ears, we would dwell in the dreadful smugness in which our mere human rationality relegates what it cannot cope with to the “irrational” as if the totality of creation were without ratios. Praise then the interruption of our composure, the image that comes to fit we cannot account for, the juncture in the music that appears discordant.

—Duncan, “Introduction,” Bending the Bow

                                                  Lebrijano's burr-throat, raspy           as night, adamant night, long night                                                   longer                     than a lifetime of                                                                                 nights 

—Nathaniel Mackey, “Song of the Andoumboulou: 16,—cante moro—”

Duncan Among the Poets

Robert Duncan's...